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Sue Kalt

Organized by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute, Honors and Scholars,

the CLAS Working Group “Continuity and Change in the Andes and Amazonia,” and the Center for Folklore Studies

“Ayni in Linguistic Fieldwork - Models for Participant Action”

The concept of fair trade is gaining popular currency in many aspects of Northern life, and has particular resonance with the Andean concept of ayni or reciprocal labor. This talk reviews models of reciprocity in the practice of linguistic fieldwork on endangered languages, with particular attention to the high Andean context. In contexts of asymmetric power relations, ‘fair trade’ may not be enough. Cyclical rebalancing of power and resources, or pachakuti, may be necessary.

Susan E. Kalt, Ph.D. is Professor of Spanish at Roxbury Community College, a historically Black institution in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the creator of Proyecto Yachay Q’ipi, a curriculum initiative in rural Bolivia and Peru begun with seed funding from the Foundation for Endangered Languages, London, and a former Documenting Endangered Languages Fellow under a joint program of the National Endowment for the Humanities/National Science Foundation.

If you require assistance to attend these events, please contact Bishal at karna.5@osu.edu.